'Serve' in the Bible

“For long ago you broke your yoke [in deliberate disobedience]And tore off your bonds [of the law that I gave you];You said, ‘I will not serve and obey You!’For on every high hillAnd under every green treeYou have lain down [in idolatrous worship] like a [compliant] prostitute.

It will come about when your people say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ then you shall answer them, ‘As you have abandoned (rejected) Me,’ [says the Lord,] ‘and have served strange and foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’

They have returned to the wickedness of their ancestors who refused to hear My words; they have followed other gods [in order] to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My [solemn] covenant which I made with their fathers.”

These wicked and malevolent people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubborn way of their heart and have followed other gods [which are nothing—just man-made carvings] to serve them and to worship them, let them be just like this waistband which is completely worthless.

“Then I will make your enemies bring [you along with] your possessionsInto a land which you do not know [for there you will serve your conquerors];For a fire has been kindled in My anger,Which will burn upon you.”

Therefore I will hurl you out of this land [of Judah] into the land [of the Babylonians] which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no compassion.’

And you will, through your own fault, let go of your [grip on your] inheritanceThat I gave you;And I will make you serve your enemiesIn a land which you do not know;For you have kindled a fire in My angerWhich will burn forever.

and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm.’

This whole land will be a waste and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant and instrument, and I have also given the wild animals of the field to serve him.

All nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the [appointed] time [of punishment] for his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their servant.

“But any nation or kingdom that will not serve this same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish,” says the Lord, “with the sword, with famine and with pestilence (virulent disease), until I have destroyed it by Nebuchadnezzar’s hand.

And as for you, do not listen to your [counterfeit] prophets, your diviners, your dreams and dreamers, your soothsayers or your sorcerers, who say to you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’

I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah in the same way, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his people, and live!

Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by famine and by virulent disease, as the Lord has spoken to any nation which will not serve the king of Babylon?

Do not listen to and believe the words of the [false] prophets who are saying to you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they prophesy a lie to you;

Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live! Why should this city become a ruin?

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “I have put the iron yoke [of servitude] on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they will serve him. And I have even given him the beasts of the field.”’”

But they shall serve the Lord their God and [the descendant of] David their King, whom I will raise up for them.

I have also sent to you all My servants the prophets, sending them repeatedly, saying, ‘Let every one of you turn now from his evil way and alter your behavior, and do not follow other gods to worship and serve them; and then you will live in the land which I have given to you and to your forefathers. But you have not submitted or listened to Me.

Then Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, swore to them and their men, saying, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans; stay in this land and serve the king of Babylon, that it may go well with you.

because of the wickedness which they committed, provoking Me to anger by continuing to burn sacrifices and incense to serve other gods that they had not known, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers.

“Wander away from the midst of BabylonAnd go out of the land of the Chaldeans;Be like the male goats [who serve as leaders] at the head of the flocks.